The field of physical therapy is an ancient art dating back in history to the first times when individuals suffered physical bodily injury and were nurtured back to a condition of physical fitness. Generally speaking, physical therapy consists in its simplest form as the healing and/or re-strengthening of bodily tissues which have experienced some form of damage as a result of a traumatic experience, surgical procedure, or atrophy.
In modern times, a multitude of events responsible for requiring physical therapy for rejuvenation and rehabilitation of an individual are frequently encountered, including without limitation sports injuries, vehicular accidents, and surgeries. In addition to being a major inconvenience to the patients themselves, when the number of occurrences of such events are coupled with the amount of "down time" experienced by each patient, the annual loss to the gross national product (GNP) is staggering. Therefore, many attempts have been made to devise an apparatus useful for rehabilitating such afflicted individuals in a minimum amount of time and in a way which maximizes the pleasure and ease of the rehabilitation experience. Generally, it is a consideration for inventors of devices useful in physical therapy to make them as compact as possible in order to make the most efficient use of floor space available, as well as provide for the ease of portability of the devices. Examples of devices useful in physical therapy are set forth in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,225,131; 4,564,193; 4,598,905; 4,824,100; 5,374,225; 5,533,948 5,586,962; and 5,645,510, the entire contents of all of the foregoing patents are now indicated as being expressly incorporated herein by reference thereto. These and other various devices and apparatus have been developed for therapy and comprehensive body conditioning programs, and in general such devices provide a means for resistance against which muscular effort must be applied.